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Okie State

Certifiably Surly
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Everything posted by Okie State

  1. I have a pretty good list of what's on each circuit already, but I need to do a more extensive check. Some of the circuits make no sense in this house. I'll also add up an approximate wattage range per circuit as a reference.
  2. They will run off of ethanol gas just fine. It has less energy in it than pure gasoline though. E10 gets you worse mpg than E0 so I would assume that's why it gets less generation time as well.
  3. Agreed. The only reason to have an automatic is if you go standby and don't want to touch anything. I'd do manual if I go the portable route. From what I've gathered, the manual transfer switch requires you to preselect which circuits will be energized when you flip over to generator power. An interlock is also manual, but energizes the entire breaker box once you isolate from the grid and you manage the load by selecting which breakers remain on. I could see advantages to each.
  4. I've been reading about those. My downstairs unit is an older 5 ton and upstairs is a 4 ton variable speed. I'd be okay with one of them running. Any preferences on a manual transfer switch vs. an interlock? Seems like both have pros and cons, but either should work.
  5. I've never seen this happen on a live OTA broadcast.
  6. I can't even imagine being there with your kids. Fuck that.
  7. Yep. The convenience is worth more, but just have to decide how much more. A few grand and it's a no brainer. $10K or so makes it a tougher decision. My biggest concerns are if A) I'm not home or B) we're on vacation. A whole home automatic version would be ideal in both of those scenarios. Regardless, we need to do something. Outages are becoming a regular occurrence lately.
  8. Who installed your transfer switch and how much did it cost? I'm looking to do the same.
  9. I'm looking at dual fuel inverters and then converting to run on natural gas. Looks pretty straight forward from what I have seen. Having three fuel options is also nice.
  10. I've been doing a lot of reading on generator setups today. I'm going to get a quote for a Kohler stand by, but I'm expecting the cost to be in the $12K+ range. I think a manual transfer switch and a portable generator or two is the solution for around a quarter of the price. I'm leaning toward inverter generators for the lower noise and cleaner power. Two 5000's in parallel or one 11,000. I have no idea if this would power one or both of my 5 ton AC's. I'm thinking of getting a couple cheap window units as a backup plan anyway. Any recommendations for transfer switch installs in West Houston area?
  11. That may have been what it was. I didn't get a good look. My wife said it looked venomous so we grabbed the kids and boogied.
  12. It was hot as fuck when I was in Santa Fe earlier this summer. But I'm coming from CO, not the seventh level of hell that is Houston. Yep, all relative. Colorado will likely be unobtainable for anyone but the wealthy in 15 years so I'm just going to assume it's not an option. Who knows though.
  13. It wasn't hot at all in Santa Fe. Albuquerque was pretty warm, but felt like heaven compared to Houston. I don't know much other than our experience. My wife's family is from there and have pretty much all stayed for some reason.
  14. Some of it is probably recency bias, but I loved the town. We went 15 years ago, but didn't really have a chance to explore like we did this time. The weather was perfect. People complain about it being dry in mountain towns, but I much prefer it to the humidity. It's small enough to get anywhere you want to go in 10 mins and traffic was never an issue except on the 4th. Tons of outdoor hiking, camping, biking nearby. Haven't been for skiing, but there is some of that too. Lots of history which I always enjoy. I liked the aesthetics of the architecture and how they haven't let strip malls overrun the place. Albuquerque was a relatively short drive if you need the amenities of a bigger city. Can also ride the train between each for like $9. I know the houses are expensive, but I haven't researched what that means. I'd gladly downsize significantly in retirement. I also don't know what winters are like there.
  15. Following because we just got back from Santa Fe and I'm trying to figure out how we can retire there. We're still about 15 years away though so plenty of time to consider our options.
  16. Hiked up to the cliff dwellings at Bandelier in New Mexico this weekend and my 7 year old spotted a snek on our trail. No idea what kind it was, but it did not look friendly so we didn't stick around to take pics. My kids now call them sneks thanks to me.
  17. We never lost power once in ten years at our old house. Even through the freeze. Since moving to this neighborhood we have lost it multiple times with this being the longest so far. It also does weird surges from time to time for no apparent reason. I would attribute it to this being a much older neighborhood, but two houses down and the entire other half of our neighborhood never loses power. There's obviously something wrong with our grid specifically and they just put bandaids on it to keep it going until the next time the wind blows. It's some bullshit to be sitting in the dark and looking out your window at houses completely unaffected.
  18. Our power just came back on. Waiting to see if it stays that way before we head home. I've heard about some people getting it back only to lose it again a few hours later after they bought all new groceries.
  19. The only thing AI will be used for is to eliminate jobs and increase executive pay. Oh and add pointless features to our cell phones and social media apps.
  20. Just got an update email! 'Please continue to be prepared to be without power for several days.' Solid update.
  21. This is one of the more depressing threads I've read. We're fucked.
  22. Is this something I could use with my pile of DeWalt batteries? Have a link?
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